By Adama Kone, Teacher Project Coordinator

Kadidia Diawara is a French teacher at Mali Rising’s Jade and Gabe Mellor Middle School in the village of Seguesona. She is 32 years old and mother of four children. She grew up in a remote small rural village. When she attended primary school there was no school her own village and she had to walk miles every day to school.

However, Kadidia had a goal, which was to graduate from middle school then attend teacher training institute elsewhere in Mali so she could become a teacher.  Kadidia Diawara told us she had this dream because working with children is a fun for her especially when it comes to sharing her knowledge with them.

Kadidia made her dream come true through hard work. She is now a French teacher and participated in her first Mali Rising Teacher Peer Meeting on Saturday, September 25th, 2021. Kadidia was thrilled to be at her first peer meeting. At the Peer Meetings, teachers present lessons to their peers for critique, share challenges and solutions, and learn key skills.

She worked as a French teacher in other middle schools before coming to our Mali Rising school, but she has never enjoyed her work as much as she does now.  Kadidia says, “Working in a bigger town makes it easy to access to clean water, and I can have my favorite food. I also get to see my friends when they visit the market in the bigger town near Seguessona.”

Kadidia mentioned that she would be delighted to take part in more Mali Rising Peer Meetings. These meetings would allow her to learn from her peers and share her ten-year teaching experience with other French teachers. She said that peer meetings are now one of the things that will make her very enthusiastic about her teaching job because the meetings will both allow her to meet friends she has not seen for many years and also allow her to improve her teaching skills. “This means I can be more helpful to my students in Jade and Gabe Mellor Middle School,” says Kadidia.

Kadidia likes her job because she feels proud of how well she teaches her students and because it allows her to make a good, independent living.  According to her, she is always determined to improve herself so she can feel more proud of her work and help her students be successful in their evaluations and exams.

Knowing that she must know a lot in order to teach her students, she reads for fun during her free time. Kadidia is thankful to Mali Rising Foundation for hosting this Teacher Peer Meeting, which consists of improving her teaching skills and students’ results in school.

Learn more about the Teacher Project.